Cons:

Monolith's never been a company to play it safe. There was 1998's Shogo, one of the first full-polygon shooters, alternating between on-foot and mecha combat. The No One Lives Forever games took a risky approach by injecting wit into an otherwise no-nonsense genre. And then there was 2005's F.E.A.R., a more mature shooter with a story that aspired to "Sixth Sense"-levels of mysteries and twists, rare for any FPS.

So it's somewhat surprising to see Monolith pull the reins back a bit with F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. It's basically a refinement of the first game, with improved graphics, better pacing and the same outstanding combat, filled with slow-mo firefights and spectacular explosions. But it's clearly less risky, with a more straightforward story and not much new in the gameplay department. So what you end up with is an enjoyable trip through familiar territory, even if it's not quite as memorable as the first.

F.E.A.R. 2 picks up right before the end of the first game. You take on the new perspective of Sgt. Michael Becket, part of a Delta squad sent into a city that's become a war zone. It started when experimental cloned soldiers created by the Armacham Technology Corporation went rogue, resulting in their black ops troops trying to shut everything down and erase any evidence of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, there's the psychic image of Alma, the creepy little girl at the center of the experiments, creating her own unique brand of destruction left and right. Your first task is to snatch a key Armacham exec before ATC can get to her, but when half the city is nuked in the explosion that ended the first game, you're knocked unconscious. Things only get worse when you wake up in a deserted and blood-spattered hospital.

The F.E.A.R. formula remains unchanged here: Most of the time it's one fight after another, either with ATC troops or Replica soldiers. The ninja-like assassins return for brief visits, and there's the occasional pseudo-boss fight with an elite unit or two. In between, Becket is continually haunted by wacked-out visions of Alma, who's stalking Becket for reasons that become clearer as the game progresses. As in the first game, the visions are often used for shock effect, with Alma appearing out of nowhere to scare the pants off you. Scattered throughout the game are media discs, which is the main way F.E.A.R. 2 tells its backstory, whether it's about your new team or Armacham or Alma.

Compared to the first game's, F.E.A.R. 2's story ends up feeling rather bland. The locations may change, whether it's an elementary school or an abandoned nuclear reactor, but you're ultimately just escaping one secret research facility to visit two others. The first game got away with this because of the personal story that revealed Alma's past (as well as your own), but here, Becket's backstory feels like too convenient a justification as to why Alma's haunting him and why he has all the same abilities as the first game's lead character. In fact, considering that the original character's whereabouts remain a mystery the entire game, the introduction of a new team feels unnecessary and forced. (I can't help but wonder how much the split between Monolith and Vivendi following the release of F.E.A.R. is to blame.) The most memorable moment comes in the final frames, and while it casts some of the story in a new light, even that feels a little gimmicky in service of setting up another sequel.

The good news is that F.E.A.R. 2's combat is consistently satisfying. It all revolves around your character's "slow-mo" ability, where you can slow down the world in brief spurts and run circles around squads of enemies. Most of this combat takes place in semi-open spaces, like a circuit of rooms where enemies might loop around to flank you. Proper use of the slow-mo ability defuses a lot of the danger, allowing you to just sit back and enjoy the scenery as stuff blows up. And that's really where most of the fun with F.E.A.R. 2 comes from: Run into a room, activate slow-mo, and wreck the joint.